


ain't it nice this life (we've got each other)

by TheJGatsby



Series: god knows we're worth it [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Smut, background stormpilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 07:27:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6109477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJGatsby/pseuds/TheJGatsby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By then, the formula is easy- wait for Finn and Poe to be out, or passed out, end up in his room, fuck her with all the passion and affection he has boxed up in his heart with her name on it, try not to tell her he loves her, and then afterwards watch Rey put her clothes back on and leave, blowing him a playful kiss goodbye more often than not.<br/>(FWB to Lovers AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	ain't it nice this life (we've got each other)

**Author's Note:**

> Credit to [Dani](http://rebellam-y.tumblr.com) for the prompt “Fwb to lovers au. Bc unresolved feelings +"we're both frustrated so lets be bangin buddies" = great fanfic” ask and ye shall receive my friend  
> Also this is my first time ever writing smut so like. be nice to my virginal soul.  
> Title from Love Someone by Jason Mraz  
> Also also check out the [incredible edit](https://voidsnsfw.tumblr.com/post/141318695929/aint-it-nice-this-life-weve-got-each-other-by) made for this fic by [voidsnsfw](http://voidsnsfw.tumblr.com). (Obviously mildly nsfw because of the nature of the fic but SO COOL and pretty)

 

Truth or dare is the most juvenile goddamn game in the universe and Ben Solo is a fucking adult who shouldn’t even be  _ playing _ drinking games because he’s a real grown-up with work in the morning unlike his friends, who have ridiculous not-real jobs like stunt pilot and freelance nature photographer. Rey’s the only other one with a real profession that people have actually heard of, but she basically runs the auto shop where she works, and in addition to being kind of a wizard with cars she’s also a fucking  _ race car driver _ on the side, so no one cares if she wanders in four hours late with a monster hangover and a temper.

Sometimes Ben wonders why these weird surreal more-than people hang out with him, a normal human from Earth, but he figures someone has to be their regular guy, like how illegal mafia stuff always has a front. Rey, Finn, and Poe are the arms smuggling operation, he’s the ethnic deli, weird meats and pickled mystery items and all.

His friendship with Poe, at least, makes some sense- they grew up together, their moms were friends, Poe in his eternal good-hearted patience was basically the only person who could stand to be around him during his embarrassing phases in middle school. His friendship with Poe will probably last forever just out of history and gratitude. Finn is Poe’s boyfriend, and they’re probably going to get married within five years, so Ben would be all kinds of shitty to dislike Finn. Rey is probably the coolest person Ben’s ever met, beating Poe mostly because Ben knows all of Poe’s secrets and weird childhood stories, so it’s easy to like Rey. And he likes Rey a  _ lot _ . According to Poe, a liar, Ben’s in love with her. But he’d deny that to his grave, even as he takes every opportunity to spend time with Rey and be close to her and ignore the way his insides do acrobatics when she smiles at him. It’s platonic.

Finn struts back into the living room strapped into the one pair of Rey’s shoes that could be considered anything like heels, which she’d left there after going with Ben to one of his fancy work parties and cutting out early so they could watch Gilmore Girls and eat ice cream before passing out curled up close on the couch. Finn strikes a pose and sits heavily back down next to Poe as his friends laugh. Rey leans her head on Ben’s shoulder, taking a swig of her drink and unintentionally making his heart stutter, as they all look to Poe, who’s next.

“Mmm, truth,” he says, spreading one arm over the back of the couch behind his boyfriend.

“Worst thing you’ve ever done in the cockpit of your plane,” Rey asks immediately.

Poe grins. “I’d say Finn, but he’s the  _ best _ , so-”

“Rey’s turn!” Finn interrupts, very obviously embarrassed. “Rey, truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Rey says, leaning forward to put her beer down on the table and then returning to her position up against Ben, who puts an arm around her shoulders before he can second-guess himself and is gratified by her settling in closer.

Poe’s eyes light up. “Kiss Ben!” he crows. Ben glares at Poe, betrayed, and is about to protest when Rey takes him by the jaw and turns his head to face her. She leans up and kisses him and he's so surprised he almost pulls away. She tastes like cheap beer and cherry chapstick and something sweet and sharp and intoxicating and all her own, and he just knows he's lost to this feeling. He's never, ever going to get enough of kissing her, and he's probably never going to get to do it again.

After a second she pulls away and he has to take a drink to get back to himself. She grins at Finn and Poe, who are looking a little shell-shocked, and then elbows Ben. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” he replies, without thinking, still stuck on their kiss, playing it over and over in his head like a skipping record.

“You and Rey, seven minutes in heaven,” Poe says immediately, smiling a broad and wicked smile.

Rey rolls her eyes. “What are we, twelve? Seven minutes in heaven. God.” But she grabs Ben by the hand and drags him off. “Closet’s too small, we’ll use the bathroom instead.”

She locks the door behind them and he’s about to start telling her that she doesn’t have to do this, they can just not and say they did, because they’re friends and he can’t imagine she’d ever  _ want _ to make out with him (definitely not as much as he wants to make out with her), but before he can say anything she’s got a hand on the back of his neck and she’s tugging him down to meet her lips.

It’s really hard to argue with that.

She kisses the way she does everything- throws herself in headfirst, eager and ready and entirely uncautious, and he returns just as much enthusiasm. His hand splays out across her back and pulls her in closer as he moves down to mouth along the side of her neck, and when she gasps softly he shivers. His hand wanders down to drag her leg up around his waist and, obligingly, the other joins it, and he lifts her and sets her down on the bathroom counter, his hand moving up underneath the back of her shirt.

When Finn bangs on the door and calls out “Time’s up!” they jump, yanked unceremoniously out of the warm, surreal haze of each other. For a long moment they just lock eyes, and Rey’s rapid breath and the wide, dark lust in her gaze makes Ben want to ignore Finn and just dive back in. Then she clears her throat awkwardly and reaches for her shirt and he pulls his hand out of her pants and steps back, the moment shattered.

Ben thinks that that’s the end of it, then- they’ve made out and he’s had his hands down her pants and up her shirt and he’ll spend the rest of his life pining because there’s no  _ way _ his feelings go away after that. He’ll probably be seeing the look on her face and the trail of hickeys he left across her collarbone on the back of his eyelids till the day he dies. But then Poe passes out half an hour later, and Finn follows him, and she kicks them experimentally to make sure they’re asleep before straddling Ben’s lap and kissing him soundly. The back of his mind is running a mantra of  _ fuck fuck fuck this is a bad idea _ but he ignores it as he carries her back to his room, kicking the door shut behind him. 

She wastes no time in tugging his shirt off and going for his neck, matching him hickey-for-bruise till their bodies are mirror images of each other, his head thrown back against the door, swearing under his breath. She pulls back, kissing him again and pushing at his chest to make him drop her while her other hand reaches between them to work at the button on his jeans. With a grin she falls to her knees, and when she tugs down his zipper with her teeth he thinks he might actually die. He reconsiders on that point when she licks a hot stripe up his dick and takes it into her mouth with a wink, because clearly he’s already dead and this is heaven.

He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t imagined this before, but the reality of her lips around his dick and her tongue hot and wet and the slight scrape of her teeth is just so much hotter than anything he could have come up with on his own. His knees almost buckle as she wraps her hand around him and starts jerking him into her mouth, and he can’t help the low moan in the back of his throat as she licks and sucks him towards his climax. He barely manages to warn her before he comes apart in her mouth, groaning her name. When she comes up to kiss him again, slow and dirty, he can taste himself on her tongue and it makes him dizzy with want.

Breaking the kiss with a gasp, he sweeps her up bridal-style into his arms and brings her, laughing, to the bed, leaving his jeans behind at the door. Ben wastes no time in stripping her, tearing at her clothes with the sort of earnest ferocity that comes from finally getting a chance to fuck the girl he’s been in love with for years. He’s all hands and mouth as he explores her body, mapping her skin with his lips and his teeth, his hand returning to its bookmarked place between her legs to finish what he’d started earlier. He traces between her folds, and  _ god _ she’s wet, so he brings his finger to his mouth and licks it off, and she shivers and grabs his wrist and moves his hand back down. He can’t help a wide grin as he traces lazy patterns on her clit, cataloguing the way she mewls and writhes, and when she drags her nails down his back he shudders, heat pooling in his belly, and slips two fingers into her just to watch her bite her lip in a vain attempt to stay quiet. She gasps his name and he fucking  _ adores _ her. When she falls apart, his fingers inside her and his thumb pressed against her clit, she throws her head back and cries out, and he brings her through it with the languid motion of his hand and hot kisses to the column of her throat.

He revels in every second of the encounter, telling himself over and over that it’s a one-time thing, that she’s scratching an itch, that this is just meaningless and they go right back to being friends in the morning. He memorizes the feel of her underneath him, the way she sighs and digs her fingers into his hair and moans into his skin. Afterwards, she kisses him one last time as she’s headed out the door and says, “We should do this again sometime,” and he’s  _ fucked _ .

That’s how it starts, but it’s far from the only time, and there’s a part of his heart that is so certain that this is all she could ever want from him, a name to moan in the throes of pleasure, and maybe even not that, maybe even that is too personal, too meaningful, but he knows that he is her friend in the day and the warm body in her bed at night, and he refuses to let himself want anything more. He already has so much.

The world, in its cruelty, has always asked everything of Rey. Just by insisting that she survive, against the odds, it has asked the near-impossible of her so constantly. Rey is a creature of giving- she gives everything she has, every day, into the life she’s built for herself, and it’s not perfect, she misses rent every once in awhile and her fridge is empty of anything but takeout boxes more often than not and she’s still trying to figure out how to be a person in ways parents are supposed to teach you and orphans never learn, but it’s enough, and it’s hers, and she worked and sweated and survived despite everything for years to make it where she is now, so Ben can’t imagine ever trying to get anything more than what she gives to him unprompted. So, no, trying to get anything more than sex out of what they have is going too far, and will stay that way unless she shows him that she wants it, and it becomes something he can give to her rather than something he’d have to ask of her.

The first night they end up at her apartment, they’ve been doing… whatever it is, for about three months. By then, the formula is easy- wait for Finn and Poe to be out, or passed out, end up in his room, fuck her with all the passion and affection he has boxed up in his heart with her name on it, try not to tell her he loves her, and then afterwards watch Rey put her clothes back on and leave, blowing him a playful kiss goodbye more often than not. She goes home, and he lays alone and forces himself to go through all the reasons he can’t  _ ever _ ask her to stay, no matter how much he wants to, reminds himself that this is about her, that the whole reason he’s throwing his heart onto the street for her to walk all over is because it’s what she wants from him and he’ll always give her the world, even if he breaks himself trying to make it happen.

So ending up at Rey’s place is already a breach of the routine, but not an alarming one- it was closer, they were already out, no reason to go back to his. It doesn’t feel meaningful, until the moment Ben realizes that  _ he _ has to be the one to leave, which is going to be a new breed of impossible, but he’ll find a way to do it anyway. He’ll figure out how when the time comes, and not a moment before.

But when the time comes, when he gets out of bed to start tugging his clothes back on, there’s another break from the normal. She catches him by the wrist with a frown and asks, “You’re not staying?”

His hands tighten around his jeans and he looks at her carefully. This is something, this is  _ important _ , he has to do this right. “Do… you want me to?”

She smiles at him and it’s soft and fond and his heart can’t decide whether it wants to stop or race as she says, “Toss me that shirt and get back in bed, Ben.” Mind completely elsewhere, he picks up his shirt off the ground and hands it to her as he crawls back into her bed. Dimly he notices how cute she looks, his shirt draped baggy and comfortable over her slight shoulders, and allows himself the moment, wanting more of it. He’s cautious as he lays back down, but she’s not, curling up half on top of him, pressing a kiss to his collarbone and tucking her head up underneath his chin. All the limits he’d thought he had, the implied rules of the arrangement, go flying out the window, and his mind races with possibilities, everything that might not be as forbidden as he thought, the loving touches and gentle caresses he’d been staying his hands from, soft words and sweet nothings he’s been biting back. He thinks there’s no way he’ll be able to sleep, but something about her warm and content in his arms lulls him and before he knows it the dream he’s living gives way to dreamless sleep.

 

Rey wakes up first, like the morning person she is, up with the sun, out of bed and ready to face the day. Today, though, he’s here and she doesn’t have anything to do, so she just closes her eyes, tucks herself in closer against him, and sighs happily. He mumbles in his sleep and curls up a little bit tighter, and she drifts off again.

The next time she wakes up, it’s to the feeling of him kissing the back of her neck, and she rolls over and catches his mouth with hers, soft and languid and a little stale from sleep. “Morning,” he murmurs, bleary and grinning. His hand comes up to brush the hair away from her face and she feels lightheaded with the tenderness of the gesture, but then his lips are at the juncture of her neck and her jaw and moving down and she feels lightheaded for a different reason. She shivers at every slow, easy kiss, his teeth nipping at her skin, his tongue darting out to soothe it. His hand slides up under the hem of the shirt she’s wearing and his fingers trace sensual, swirling patterns into the hollow of her hipbone. He tugs down the neckline to get at her collarbones and she pulls the shirt over her head, tossing it into the corner and earning a wicked grin from him.

With a few searing kisses pressed to her stomach and her hipbones, he buries his head between her thighs, making her sigh and moan and writhe. When he slips his fingers into her she tangles hers in his hair, swearing and locking her legs around his head. She can feel him smile against her, the flash of his teeth on her clit, the press of his curled fingers against her walls, and she comes with a keening moan, her back arching off the bed. 

Rey drags him up for a kiss, catching his hand in hers and twining their fingers together. It still feels almost miraculous that he’s here at all, and there’s a voice in her head that can’t stop whispering,  _ he stayed he stayed he wanted to stay he wanted this he wanted you _ , over and over, thrilled and disbelieving. Her chest is full up with bright, warm affection and the hope that maybe all those years of being in love with her best friend will come to something other than heartbreak. She’d started fucking him because she thought that was all she’d ever get from him, and she’s very good at settling, but this moment makes her feel like her outlandish fantasies of love in addition to lust might be something real, something  _ possible _ .

Ben breaks the kiss, balancing over her on his elbows, and the smile he gives her is wide and enamored and dizzying between kissing her cheeks, her nose, her forehead. “Morning,” she says, and when he laughs softly she can feel it in her chest. He rolls over and pulls her on top of him, her head pillowed on his chest, and she thinks she can die happy here with his heartbeat against her cheek and one of his hands running lazily up and down her back while she holds the other between her own, tracing the lines on his palm. “Thank you for staying,” she says, quiet and nervous, and he presses a kiss to the crown of her head.

“I wish we’d done this sooner,” he replies, ghosting his fingers over her cheek and pulling her up for another kiss. “I like waking up with you.”

And he’s being so sweet, and she’s so overwhelmed, and the world feels so magic and breathless in the warm Sunday-morning sunlight, and she feels like this is it, this is the moment, so she closes her eyes and sighs happily and says, “I love you, Ben.”

He freezes and her stomach drops and she’s about to say something, an apology or a retraction or whatever will fix this, when he kisses her, and it’s somehow different from all the other kisses they’ve shared, so full of emotion she thinks she’ll never breathe again for it, and when she melts into it his arms tighten around her like he can’t get her close enough. Finally he pulls back and his smile is  _ blinding  _ and she’s so happy she could cry as he holds her close and presses his forehead against hers and says, “I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://thejgatsbykid.tumblr.com)!


End file.
